150 CROP GROWING AND CROP FEEDING 



MAKING THE ENSILAGE. 



We frequently see statements in the agricultural papers, from men who 

 are evidently new hands at ensilage making, that it is totally needless to cut 

 the corn, and that corn packed in the silo uncut keeps as well as the cut. We 

 have seen this uncut silage, and do not want any of it. It is false economy, 

 even if the product was as good, since to feed it economically the food must 

 be cut, and it is a far harder job to cut the fermented mass than to cut it 

 while fresh and green. One brilliant genius published a statement that he 

 had found it needless to use a cutting machine, as he found that if the stalks 

 were chopped in six-inch pieces with a hatchet they kept just as well. What 

 sort of a mind the man must have who would put a hatchet in competition 

 with a power cutter we cannot understand. Cut the corn into the silo in 

 inch pieces, and merely keep a hand in the silo to keep it level and to prevent 

 all the grain from running to the edges. Cut when the corn is fully in the 

 roasting ear stage. The harvesting is best done with the binder, which cuts 

 and binds the stalks in a shape easily handled. Be in no particular hurry 

 about the filling, but allow it to settle a while at times. If it rains no matter, 

 it will do just as well cut when wet as at any other time. If the corn is over 

 ripe, it is well to spray it with water as the silo is being filled. In fact, if the 

 silo is air-tight at sides and bottom, and has free ventilation at the top for the 

 steam to pass off, it is far easier to keep the ensilage than it is to spoil it. 



THE FEEDING VALUE OF ENSILAGE. 



The storing of the cut corn in the silo does not add any value to it as a 

 food that it did not already possess, but it puts it into a shape in which we can 

 get the full feeding value better than in any other way, and in a shape where 

 it is succulent and palatable to the stock. On one occasion, when I was en- 

 gaged in cutting a fine growth of corn into a silo, a neighbor expressed the 

 opinion that I was wasting a fine crop of corn, as he thought it would make 

 at least 50 bushels per acre. I showed him that corn was rarely worth over 

 50 cents per bushel there, and that generally I could buy corn in the Fall 

 for 40 cents per bushel. But putting my crop at 50 cents per bushel, there 

 would be $25 worth of corn per acre, and the cutting of the crop and husking 

 it out would cost more than the cutting and putting in the silo. There 

 would be a great waste of fodder in the field curing, and the stover would 

 not be as valuable dry cured as ensiloed, as a large part of the feeding value 

 would be lost. The corn made me 20 tons of silage per acre, which carefully 



